Panthers Not On Sports Agency's Agenda

MIAMI - — The agency that owns the Miami Arena will meet today, but strategies to keep the Florida Panthers in South Florida aren't even on the agenda.

"We probably won't even talk about the Panthers or a new arena," said Victor DeYurre, chairman of the Miami Sports & Exhibition Authority, a major player in the construction and operation of any new sports center in the city.

"It's not an issue we are dealing with now," DeYurre said. "Everything is up in the air."

Not for H. Wayne Huizenga, owner of the Panthers.

Huizenga has vowed to begin looking soon for buyers for his hockey team. Time has run out for South Florida cities and counties to field a viable plan, he has said. Dade officials currently favor building a new arena on a bayfront site in downtown Miami.

A new arena would cost $160 million, studies have shown. The county has identified $120 million for financing, but a $40 million shortfall remains.

Huizenga has said his deadline to put the team on the block is Oct. 31, a week away. But, on Friday, convinced that weeks of talks with Dade officials will prove fruitless, Huizenga Holdings sent a letter to Metro commissioners.

Without a "financially viable public sector plan" for a new arena, the letter said, the team will be playing elsewhere by the 1996-97 season.

Huizenga has said the Panthers, whose deal at the arena is not as lucrative as that of the Miami Heat, are losing $1 million a month.

DeYurre on Monday said he was well aware of Huizenga's deadline, but said he had already made his best offer to the Panthers.

Last week, when Metro-Dade Commission Chairman Arthur Teele asked the city and sports authority to restructure the teams' leases, DeYurre offered the Panthers a $100,000-a-month break.

"I never heard from the owners," DeYurre said.

Now, DeYurre is waiting for the Panthers, the Heat and the county to make an offer.

"The owners now have to step forward and say each will give $20 million to fill in the construction gap or say something along those lines, and the county must be in line for us to come into the mix," DeYurre said.

Meanwhile, a last-ditch plan being considered by Broward commissioners to build a new arena has not won the support of hotel and motel owners because hotel occupancy taxes would have to be raised to pay for the arena.